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CUE 2004

RESEARCH NEWS
CU Faculty Help Bring Security to Cyberspace

Professors Alexander Wolf (left) and Antonio Carzaniga work on new technologies to enhance computer and communications security.

Vulnerabilities in our computer and communications infrastructure are a major concern in today's society. With this in mind, CU faculty are developing new technologies to secure these systems against a variety of threats, from opportunistic viruses to a possible terrorist attack.

Among the new technologies developed in the college's Computer and Communications Security Center is a superior network intrusion prevention system that blocks worms and viruses before they are able to enter a network. The system uses a "multi-classifier" to arrange its detection processes in parallel, thus providing the highest level of protection without sacrificing network speed. CU's graduate MBA students have developed a business plan based on the technology, which was developed by Computer Science professors Antonio Carzaniga and Alexander Wolf.

Some of the center's technologies also have started appearing in national and international standards. The UMAC algorithm developed by CU Assistant Professor John Black has been adopted by the New European Schemes for Signature, Integrity, and Encryption as the method of choice for fast message authentication. Another algorithm, XCBC, has been adapted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and proposed as a national standard for message authentication based on the new Advanced Encryption Standard block cipher.

Eleven faculty from three departments on the Boulder campus are involved in the center, bringing expertise in operating systems, networks, telecommunications, database management systems, software engineering, sensor networks, mathematics, information theory, economics, law, public policy, and human factors.

"We are looking at these problems from both technical and social perspectives to try to find a sustainable balance between economic growth and a secure cyber infrastructure," says Wolf, the center director.

The center offers both undergraduate and graduate courses in computer and communications security, and hosts up to 10 undergraduate students each summer for security-related research.

For more information on the Computer and Communications Security Center, visit www.ccsc.colorado.edu.